Highlander: The Source

The world is falling into chaos. As he wanders a rundown city, Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander, remembers the better times before he lost his girlfriend. Hopeless and alone, MacLeod finds his way to a group of immortal friends, including his mysterious friend Methos (Peter Winfield), and a mortal, Watcher Joe Dawson (Jim Byrnes). Together this small group goes on a journey to find the origin of the first Immortal and The Source of their immortality.

Just when you think that this is a franchise that couldn’t get any worse, we have the television released “Highlander: The Source,” which came out in 2007. This says it itself, this is a franchise that has completely sunk way down low in its course (hint, hint, “Highlander 2”).

No Christopher Lambert this time. Instead we get the sitcom’s Highlander, Adrian Paul, who is a likable actor that displays a lazy charm, but that is not even shown here. JamesO'Ehley said in his review, “Here he just sort of disappears in-between the folds of the thick overcoat he is made to wear, the overcrowded cast and the endless sword fights.” Even the plot completely makes no sense. I guess it’s about the planets aligning and having to find The Source, which is an energy field that will let Paul’s character become mortal and have children…something along those lines. (Also, why are the characters called Immortals if they can be killed through beheading?) Actually, director Brett Leonard spends more time in fancy camera tricks and lighting than trying to make the plot make sense.

O’Ehley admitted, “Two things made me chuckle aloud though: one character called Cardinal Giovanni's silly haircut - probably the worst one since Samuel L. Jackson's dye job for Jumper. And the shots of the Earth's planets being in alignment. Not only are they in alignment but seemed to have moved so close to the Earth that they appear larger than the moon! Strangely enough no tidal waves or anything of the sort ensues . . .”

You might think that “Highlander: The Source” was filmed with the thinking that this would have been theatrically released but no distributor would have wanted to release it in their theaters. That’s actually a good thought. Instead, it was released on the SciFi channel (who has no doubts when it comes to this area) and now it should never be bought if shown at any thrift stores.

In all honesty, just when you thought that the series could not have gotten any lower than “Highlander 2,” in comes this made-for-television sequel that clearly shows the lowest of the low. There is nothing likable about this film and should never be seen by anyone who is a fan of the franchise. You will regret ever watching such a horrendous sequel, that is one of the worst ever made.

Good riddance I am done with that pathetic film. Thanks for joining in on “Highlander Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed it and I will see you all next month. Stay tuned to see what I have in store for everyone on the last month of 2019.

The Blind Side

For this year’s Thanksgiving movie review, I thought I would look like 2009 biographical film about Ravens football player, Michael Oher, “The Blind Side.”

Leigh Paatsch started her review by saying, “A vision worth seeing if you can look past the obvious. Based on a sincerely inspirational true story, The Blind Side pours its audience a straight shot of full-strength uplift, with a corn-syrup chaser on the side.”

Not everyone will have the ability to take all of this in, but the creators of this film look like they don’t really care. Paatsch said, “As a work of middle-of-the-road entertainment for middle America, The Blind Side unashamedly revels in the hokey, the homespun and the heartfelt.” Very powerfully, as it turns out.

Paatsch described, “At the centre of the familiar, yet fascinating feelgood tale told here are two radically contrasting figures. Summarised in Hollywood shorthand, one could be described as a plus-size Forrest Gump, while the other is a posh Erin Brockovich.”

Michael Oher, played by Quinton Aaron, is a homeless teen, just one of a handful of children projected alone in a terrible society by a drug-addicted single mother.

A friendly tall person that is one the spectrum and a dishonestly unemotional personality, Michael gets enrolled into a very good Christian school in Memphis.

One of the sports coaches thinks Michael might have the look of a great defensive football player. Michael thinks he might be able to quietly sleep in the gym at night.

That will not go under the radar of Leigh Anne Tuohy, played by Sandra Bullock. Paatsch said, “Once this well-heeled wife of a fast-food tycoon gets wind of Michael’s plight, she throws open the doors of her McMansion and sets about getting the kid back on his feet.”

Leigh Anne’s husband (country singer Tim McGraw) and children (Lily Collins and Jae Head) know better than to go against with, as Paatsch described: “her when she’s on feisty fairy-godmother form.” The sincere friendship and support the whole family gives to Michael leave a huge impact on the audience as his eventual rise to football popularity.

Paatsch said, “Performances here are perfunctory across the board. Though Bullock is exceptionally well-cast, there is certainly no "wow" factor to her work that warrants red-hot favourtism for the next Best Actress Oscar. Bullock’s unknown castmate Aaron achieves just as much in a far tougher role.”

Hands down, “The Blind Side” has its own amount of flaws. The script can be easily pointed out for everything but not pointing out the racial problems that had to have made Michael accomplishing his dream so much harder.

Paatsch noted, “In what is clearly the film’s worst (and painfully whitest) scene, Leigh Anne goes to lunch with a flock of socialites who condescendingly peck at her charitable efforts with Michael.”

“Honey, you are changing that boy’s life,” says one of the nicer women at the table.

Leigh Anne responds happily as you fear she would: “No…he’s changing mine.”

Paatsch said, “There are several ouch-worthy moments like this in The Blind Side, but they are spaced just far enough apart not to devalue the real worth of Michael Oher’s story.”

If the film influences even a little group of the audience to be nicer organized to other people, then it looks like they have done that.

As good as the movie is, when you look at the real story of Michael Oher, it feels like they just insulted the man. In reality, he is a very intelligent man and the family did take him in, but it wasn’t because he had nowhere to go. He still had a home that he could go to. Michael Oher did not have any disabilities or anything because, like already mentioned, he is very intelligent. However, this is still a feel good movie that you should watch on Thanksgiving, but I think if you just watch it once, that would be enough. However, if you can watch it more than once, good for you.

Happy Thanksgiving my online readers! I hope everyone had a good dinner tonight. Look out tomorrow for the finale of “Highlander Month.”

Highlander: The Search for Vengeance

Colin McLeod (he is now named, voiced by Alistair Abell) has for centuries hunted former dictator and fellow immortal Marcus Octavius (Nolan North), who took the life of his wife in medieval Scotland. In the future, McLeod is in a decimated and submerged New York, where just one monumental tower now rules the skyline, commanding dictatorship. A group of survivors go to him for recovery, but McLeod is only out for vengeance.

Justin Bowyer said in his review, “Seldom has a franchise nosedived like Highlander. Since the cult success of the 1986 original, various attempts at reviving the neat idea of immortals whose only weakness is beheading have been thrust clumsily upon us.”

Now, thanks to anime director Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who directed “The Animatrix,” new excitement is brought to the fans who have been disappointed. Taking place in a futuristic New York where Colin MacLeod wants revenge for his wife’s murder, this gives enough impressive set-pieces to revive the enjoyment of the original. Bowyer said, “The plot and dialogue are stodgy, but there are thrills and bloody spills aplenty.”

Bowyer ended his review by saying, “Despite some clunky storytelling, there's enough visceral action here to revive a franchise long thought dead.”

“Highlander: The Search for Vengeance” came out in 2007 and it was a welcome return to what was thought to be dead. I have to admit, if you have been very dissatisfied with what the franchise had been giving you, you can skip the sequels and just see this one because it feels like a true follow-up to the original.

Sadly, this doesn’t end here. There was one more attempt at the franchise that was released later in the year, but on TV. Check in this Friday for the conclusion of “Highlander Month” to see for yourself how it was.

Highlander: Endgame

In the “Highlander” movies and TV shows, the famous line is, “In the end, there can be only one.” Unfortunately, that line doesn’t apply to the “Highlander” movies.

In the fourth and supposed final film, “Highlander: Endgame,” released in 2000, the Scottish immortal from the series, Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), finally teams up with his brother, Duncan (Adrian Paul), the protagonist of the TV show, to fight against an immortal named Jacob Kell (Bruce Payne) to stop him from absorbing every immortal power and using it for evil.

Eric D. Snider said in his review, “Or at least that’s what the trailers and promotional materials tell us.” Actually, Connor and Duncan don’t choose to fight Kell (or even completely see they have to) until about the last act. Once they’ve decided that, the actual winning against Kell is a really automatic role, with no actual suspense at all.

Snider noted, “What happens before all that is a lot of jumping through time, to show us vignettes from the immortals’ lives over the past few centuries, often stylishly filmed but never amounting to anything.” We know that Connor is really livid at Kell for ordering Connor’s mother, played by June Watson, burned at the stake. We also know that Kell is just as ticked at Connor for killing Kell’s foster father, played by Donald Douglas, while he was trying to save his mother.

If that’s not all for the revenge to last 500 years, there’s also Duncan’s promise. It looks like he married a woman named Kate, played by Lisa Barbuscia, who had the chance to be immortal like him – a nice deal, since she would end up getting old and dying, which would leave him lonely. To make her immortal, he stabbed her in the chest (the movie does not explain how, exactly, killing someone makes them immortal). Now she’ll never die, which is NOT something she wanted, and that makes her really mad. She even decides to team up with Kell’s group of immortals who go around creating fear and trying to kill the MacLeods.

For those who may not remember or know, the only way to kill an immortal is to behead them with a sword. Snider said, “Of course, this stretches the definition of “immortal” — “not subject to death” — but you go along with it with “Highlander” out of politeness.”

Snider continued, “What you’re not liable to go along with is “Highlander: Endgame’s” random method of storytelling and the inclusion of things that simply don’t make much sense.” (If they’re counting on everyone having seen the first three movies, they’re wrong: the third movie grossed only $14 million, the second did $15 million, even the original classic made only $6 million in theaters. To put it otherwise, this is not “Star Wars,” where you can guarantee the audience knowing the whole story.)

Snider noted, “Perhaps if you’ve seen the other three films, you’ll know who Rachel is, and why she was killed, and why Connor is so devastated by it that for 10 years he’s been in a sort of rudimentary cryogenic “sanctuary.”” Maybe people can fill others in on why, exactly, “in the end, there can be only one” – and if that’s it, how there seems to be so many for such a lengthy time. At what point do we get to “the end,” which must be the deadline where there has to be only one immortal remaining? Snider answered, “I guess it’s the end of this movie, because that’s when there’s only one left, and there are no prizes for guessing which one it is.”

Kate complains about being an immortal, complaining about “the endless, numbing sameness of it all.” Snider ended by saying, “I know how she feels.”

This movie isn’t as bad as the second, but it still is pretty atrocious. Who would have thought of making all these sequels that don’t hold a candle to the original, which should have been best left alone? I do remember seeing parts of the series as a kid, but I never watched it, so I don’t know how good it was, but it has got to be better then these sequels. Just do yourself a favor and never see this film.

Look out next week where I look at the last two entries in “Highlander Month.”

Highlander III: The Sorcerer

Tricked that he won the Prize, Connor MacLeod wakes up from a peaceful life when an enshrined immortal magician comes hunting the Highlander.

Clark Collis said in his review, “The plot may not be any less far-fetched and Lambert’s Scottish accent is certainly no more Scottish, but the third installment in the Highlander story finds a franchise at least partially back on course after its lame predecessor.”

Taking place in between the first two movies, Christopher Lambert reprises the immortal swordsman Connor McLeod, now living with his adopted son, played by Gabriel Kakon, in Marrakech. Obviously, it doesn’t last and the Highlander soon sees his peaceful life threatened when the powerful, clearly anti-social Kane, played by Mario Van Peebles, escapes from 400 years of imprisonment with the mission of decapitating Lambert. Problems start to arise when the appearance of the lovely archaeologist Dr. Alex Johnson, played by Deborah Kara Unger, who ends up being, unsurprisingly, Lambert’s French revolution era mistress in a past life. Collis said, “The scene is thus set for a return to New York and yet another bout of dark threats, Gallic posturing and excessive swords ‘n’ sorcery hokum.”

Without Sean Connery’s mentor figure will be sorely missed, and the Versailles flashbacks are really ridiculous, but there is some real effort being put in “Highlander III: The Sorcerer (aka Highlander: The Final Dimension),” released in 1994. Collis said, “Debut director Morahan pulls off a few dazzling special effects and Lambert hones in on a splendidly fitting grim stoicism. Best of all is Peebles who spends the entire movie stalking around in silly costumes and muttering such corkers as “Four hundred years is a long-time to hate” like a man who’s got the next Bond villain job in the bag.” Large, mindless enjoyment, but be careful to try not to laugh too loud at the sad parts.

This may be a lame sequel, but it’s in a good way.

If you didn’t like the last movie, this film will redeem itself for you. It doesn’t hold a candle to the first film, but that will be a tough one to top. Check it out for yourself and see how you enjoy it.

Look out next week when we review the next film in “Highlander Month.”

Terminator: Dark Fate

Tonight I went and checked out “Terminator: Dark Fate,” which came out nine days ago, and I will let everyone what I thought about it. Is it better than any of the other sequels or does it sink lower in a franchise that has long been dead?

Edwin Arnaudin started his review by saying, “Terminator: Dark Fate operates as if none of the series’ films after T2: Judgement Day exist — a bit of a shortsighted choice seeing as all but Genisys are solid action flicks, but also a logical one since it’s the first installment in 27 years where saga creator James Cameron is involved in crafting the story.”

However, in the beginning it appears like the newcomer will be in the same disappointing block like the last one. With future resistance leader John Conner (Jude Collie as the body double but CGI was made to recreate Edward Furlong’s face from T2, and Aaron Kunitz providing the voice) kind of shockingly not in the movie, the film fast forwards to the present where young Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is mysteriously tracked through Mexico City by the apparently indestructible REV-9 terminator (Gabriel Luna).

Despite the REV-9’s fast speed and liquid metal agility make it the most scary time-traveling terminator the series has given fans, its main fight and car-chase scenes with other future soldier Grace, played by Mackenzie Davis, are flawed by horrible, clearly fake effects work. Arnaudin said, “In addition to an odd, blurry glow, these action sequences are often incomprehensible due to overly fast camera movements and an excess of edits by director Tim Miller that make one wonder if his Deadpool has similar issues that were somehow forgiven in the moment.”

As Dani and Grace are teamed up with dangerous lone warrior Sarah Connor, reprised by Linda Hamilton, “Dark Fate” finds a short solution to its visual despairs by, obviously, refraining from fights and shootouts. Seeking help and regrouping, the three follows coordinates to Texas and meet up with a T-800, reprised by Arnold Schwarzenegger, that Sarah has a long hatred for.

In one of the year’s real surprises, Schwarzenegger is hilarious as “Carl,” a terminator with a conscience who becomes a family man and, after 22 years of mastering his expressionless delivery, is a comedy genius. Arnaudin noted, “Back in his most iconic role, the actor is a consistent delight and peppers the film with humor and, eventually, top-notch action.”

Arnaudin continued, “Once the battles resume, Miller finds a solution to his movie’s nagging issue by filming in the dark of night and, occasionally, underwater — pet peeves of this critic that, at least here, miraculously result in greater clarity and increased excitement. The combo of Grace and Carl offer an exhilarating match for the REV-9, and Grace’s gifts with a metal chain are goosebump-inducing.”

Its faults quickly forgiven, “Terminator: Dark Fate” keeps the anxiety and excitement promoted to the end and brings the “Terminator franchise” back to where future ideas are again a welcome suggestion.

I have to admit, since the past few sequels have been disappointing, but maybe have some entertainment value in them; this one really redeemed the franchise. Taking a page from the “Halloween Franchise” of retroactive continuity, you can watch the first two movies then skip straight to this one. Have no fear; you can go to the theaters to watch this movie because it is an absolute must, especially for those who have been really underwhelmed by the past few, especially if you are a fan of this series and have wanted a good sequel.

Just a word of warning to people to not do what I did. Because I was trying to find an ATM to withdraw money and find parking, I didn't have time to go to the bathroom before I went in because we were already late. I ended up having to hold it in for the entire runtime and it was too unbearable sometime after the climax, but I didn't want to go to the bathroom because I didn't want to miss anything important. Because theaters now have reclining seats, that didn't help, so I had to get out of my seat and stand near the entrance, which did help, but it was still bad. Once the movie was over, I bolted to the bathroom, so make sure to use the bathroom before watching the movie.

Thank you for joining in on tonight’s review, look out this Friday for the continuation of “Highlander Month.”

Highlander II: The Quickening

In the year 2025, the ozone layer has been destroyed. Connor MacLeod and Juan Ramirez fly in to help save the world. They fight with the planet Ziest and a money grabbing company wanting to make a fortune from the lack of ozone.

A completely confused sequel to the imaginative but in no way perfect original, with aliens from the Planet Zanussi hunting Christopher Lambert in a dark future purgatory of post-ozone poverty. Kim Newman said in her review, “Sean Connery dragged back from death for a bare-faced cameo, Michael Ironside sneering as a dictator of the universe who can only summon two evil followers, and Virginia Madsen wondering what the heck she’s got into.”

Newman continued, “With a plot that swallows itself, a series of story premises that will have you scratching your head, and some very tired visual fireworks from director Russell Mulcahy, who seems to have graduated from promising to has-been without passing through success.”

To put it clearly for “Highlander II: The Quickening,” released in 1991, there is no plot, no real story, and no point really to be made. What was the point in making a sequel? Was there any need to make a film that didn’t need a sequel, didn’t ask for one and didn’t leave the audiences wondering what would happen after the end of the first movie? Just do yourself a favor and don’t watch this because it’s one of the worse sequels ever made. If you liked the first one, you’ll be watching this questioning what they were thinking when they made this.

Believe it or not, they made a third movie. How is that one compared to this mess of a sequel? Stay tuned next week in “Highlander Month” to find out.

Highlander

All throughout November, I believe will be a good time to give in and review the “Highlander Franchise.” Let’s jump right in with the first film, and one of the greatest, “Highlander,” released in 1986.

The good versus evil story has to be the theme used the most in movies besides possibly love wins over everything. Scott of Three Movie Buffs said in his review, “The best you can hope for in a movie that uses one of these themes is for the presentation to be original.” “Highlander’s” story is one of the most original ever made.

This is about a group of immortals fighting to the death, until there is only one left alive. The last one living will win ‘the prize.’ This prize is the power of every other immortal put together.

The story is about Conner McLeod, an immortal born in the highlands of Scotland during the 15^th century. He is ‘killed’ during a battle with another tribe and exiled from his village when he mysteriously recovers. After a few years, another immortal, Juan Rameriz, played by Sean Connery, trains him to fight and teaches him the rules of fighting over immortals. The war between the immortals continues through centuries, until the final fight in modern day New York where the majority of the film takes place.

Director Russell Mulchaey, known until this time for music videos, does an amazing job on the movie. Scott is right when he credits, “His transition shots between modern day and the historical flashbacks are both original and ingenious.” His directing, the action, and the soundtrack by one of the greatest bands ever Queen, keeps this movie moving along.

Despite Chirstopher Lambert being the main actor, Clancy Brown nearly conquers the movie as the evil immortal, Victor Kruger. Scott mentioned, “His towering presence is truly menacing as he gleefully terrorizes Conner through the streets of New York.”

The movie’s only weakness is the love story between Connor and Brenda, played by Roxanne Hart. It looks unnatural. Pined in the plot, it gives a female character and a superfluous love scene.

Scott said, “Highlander is a highly original, in concept at least, movie with an over the top villain, incredible visuals, and a soundtrack by one of the best rock bands ever.” If only they could release a decent sequel.

If you want to know what I mean by that, you will have to wait until next week when I look at one of the worst sequels ever made in “Highlander Month.”

Aside from that, this is one of the greatest films ever made. If you haven’t seen this yet, you have to see it because it is such an enjoyable time watching it. Especially with great lines like “You cannot die McLeod,” “You can’t drown you fool, you’re immortal,” and the ever classic, “There can only be one.” You have to see this one, I give it a high recommendation.